Olympic skeleton slider Katie Uhlaender won a world championships gold medal in 2012 and won the World Cup season title twice. She spends part of her year working on the farm owned by her late father, Ted Uhlaender. She wears his 1972 World Series ring on a chain around her neck.

Above, Katie Uhlaender sometimes works — and works out — on her family's farm in the northwest corner of Kansas. She is training in Calgary, Alberta, but pinching pennies because she lost her sponsor and her funding was cut. Top, she wears her father Ted's 1972 World Series ring on a necklace. Above photo by Jesie Frisbie, Special to The Denver Post; top photo courtesy of Katie Uhlaender

Breckenridge’s Katie Uhlaender is a former world champion skeleton slider and two-time World Cup season champion, credentials that mark her as a medal contender at the Sochi Olympics next February. But these days she’s crashing in a friend’s basement in Calgary, Alberta, sleeping on an air mattress, because she needs to be as frugal as she can.

Uhlaender is in Canada for five weeks so she can train at the only “ice house” in North America, where bobsled and skeleton athletes practice their starts in the summer. She also spends a lot of time fretting about funding.

Uhlaender lost her sponsor (Nike), and her monthly stipend from the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation was cut from $2,000 to $1,750. She was counting on income from the family farm in northwest Kansas, where she spends part of her year working and training, but drought has wiped out that prospect.

“The problem is, I have no sponsors and I have no cattle income,” Uhlaender said during a phone interview from Calgary.

But help is trickling in. She has registered on a “crowd-funding” website called RallyMe, which helps Olympic hopefuls solicit contributions from the public. So far she has received $2,890 through RallyMe, and that has helped her buy two sets of runners for her sled ($1,600), a major relief.

“I raised enough money to get through Calgary,” Uhlaender said. “Everyone who contributed a little bit has made it possible for me to have two sets of runners, and I was able to pay my bills without stressing out.”

World Cup superstar Lindsey Vonn has sponsors that make sure she doesn’t need help paying her bills, but ski jumper Lindsey Van does. Van has raised more than $20,000 through RallyMe.

Matthews, a 21-year-old moguls skier from Frisco who is considered a rising star on the U.S. freestyle team and an athlete to watch for the Sochi Games, will have to pay her own expenses in the coming ski season because she finished 11th on the World Cup circuit last season. The top 10 finishers are fully funded by the U.S. Ski Team.

When she can, Matthews earns money by coaching, serving at banquets and babysitting. So far she’s raised $1,326 via RallyMe, toward a goal of $20,000.

“I have to pay for all my travel to World Cups, all my lodging expenses, so the idea of RallyMe is incredibly helpful,” Matthews said from Park City, Utah, where she is practicing her aerial tricks on the water jumps at Utah Olympic Park. “Get your name out there a little bit more, and have a community rally behind you.”

Uhlaender will be aiming to make her third Winter Olympics this winter. Her father, Ted, was a major-league outfielder from 1965-72 who died in 2009. Katie wears his 1972 World Series ring when she races.

She also is trying to make it to the Summer Olympics as a weightlifter. She competed in the Olympic trials last summer and won a silver medal in her weight class at the USA Weighlifting national championships this summer.

“I live for competition,” Uhlaender said. “I’m an athlete, it’s what I do, it’s what I love to do. I compete in everything I do, I can’t help it. If I’m running on a treadmill next to somebody, I’m going to know what (speed) that person next to me is doing, just because I’m competitive. It’s my way of life.”

She wants to compete through the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, but she just turned 29 and she is feeling maternal desires. She wants to raise a family on her dad’s farm.

“I’m a girl, I want children and the things that go with that,” Uhlaender said. “I want to have as many kids as I can afford, and if that’s going to happen, I can’t wait until I’m 37. But my life right now consists of farming and the Olympics, and I love it. I’m not the kind of girl that’s going to make finding a man a priority. I’ll have to have faith in God’s plan and continue doing what I feel like he wants me to be doing, and everything will fall into place.”

Meanwhile, she trains for Sochi with everything she has, because she’s not in it just for herself. “Having the support from my boosters on RallyMe and my friends and family, it just makes it all that much more necessary for me to put my all into it,” she said. “I could not do this on my own.”

John Meyer: 303-954-1616, jmeyer@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jmeyer26

The Post's ski and Olympics writer, Meyer covered his 12th Games last summer in Rio de Janeiro. He has covered five World Alpine Ski Championships and more than 100 World Cup ski events. He is a member of the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame and Colorado Running Hall of Fame. He regularly covers running and the Colorado Rapids.

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